I gave myself quite a fright today when after having a problem moving some CVS-backed Java source files around, I found that the code that I had written yesterday (and failed to check in) was now nowhere to be found.

Tracked it down to just one missing source file, and luckily I had a compiled class file of the old code. Now all I needed was a tool to resurrect the source file from the ashes...

After 5 minutes of searching around on Google I found what I was looking for, a Java decompiler called JAD. I downloaded the statically linked Intel Linux version, extracted the zip and placed my class file in the extracted directory.

Running JAD was as easy as ./jad IveMessedUp.class which produced the original in double quick time.

JAD was a life-saver (well time-saver at least) and so I wanted to spread the word about this lovely tool.